The present invention relates to fabric article treatment or refreshment in a domestic appliance having at least one detergency step, to products for conducting such treatment or refreshment, and to kits which combine fabric article treatment products for more effective results.
Fabric articles, such as mixed bundles of consumer garments and/or footwear are cleaned and further treated with compositions other than cleaning compositions in various ways. These include treating the fabric articles by:
(a) washing them in a washing machine and drying them in a dryer in the presence of a fabric-softener loaded substrate article;
(b) washing them in a washing machine, then treating them with fabric softener, then transferring them to a dryer;
(c) washing them and treating them with fabric softener in a combined washer-dryer using water as the predominant fluid; and
(d) washing or treating them in a non-domestic appliance, such as a supercritical fluid cleaning machine or a dry-cleaning machine, for example using supercritical carbon dioxide as the predominant fluid.
Typically the fabric articles have to be separated according to the textile of which they are made or according to their color, before such washing can be done. Additionally so-called xe2x80x9chome dry cleaningxe2x80x9d compositions have recently become available. These offer imperfect cleaning and are used exclusively in tumble-dryers, where only very small amounts of organic fluids can be used without fire hazards or other problems. Moreover, some recent innovations in appliances for commercial and/or service business use a predominant fluid which is other than water and/or liquified carbon dioxide. For example, the predominant fluid can be a silicone or fluorocarbon. Conventional dry-cleaning uses perchloroethylene, Stoddard solvent, or other hydrocarbons and/or azeotropic mixtures of volatile compounds. None of the present alternatives offer the consumer the degree of convenience and satisfaction that would be available if they could treat a mixed, preferably unseparated, bundle of fabric articles in a single series of cleaning and finishing operations in a single appliance at home. Perhaps the closest available treatment is that which is conducted in a combined washer-dryer, however, even in this case such appliances have no provision for using let alone recovering any fluids other than water. Moreover, there has apparently been little effort in the art to fully harness and exploit the cleaning and fabric care advantages of processes having more than one fluid.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,044, Economics Laboratory Inc. describes a laundry method, all taking place in an aqueous laundry bath, including the step of laundering oil soiled fabric in a particularly defined lipophilic surfactant composition and subsequently laundering such fabric with a hydrophilic surfactant based detergent system. More particularly described is a multi-step process for laundering oil soiled fabric, said process comprising: laundering said fabric in a first aqueous bath including a lipophilic surfactant which imparts oil-solubilizing characteristics to said first aqueous bath, separating said fabric from said first aqueous bath, laundering said fabric in a second hydrophilic aqueous bath including hydrophilic detergent and separating said fabric from said second hydrophilic aqueous bath.
JP--05009862 A, Kanebo (Derwent Accession Number 1993-062193 [08]) describes a process comprising washing a silk fabric grafted with vinyl monomer by a weak alkaline chemical agent such as sodium tripolyphosphate, hydrosulphite, or Marseilles soap. washing with water, drying, and thereafter clumping under immersion in an organic solvent. The organic solvent may be a low dielectric constant solvent e.g. tetrachloroethylene, mineral terpene, or a dry cleaning liquid. The softening process of the graft silk fabric is asserted to impart softness without using a softening agent. The process is not apparently used to treat bundles of manufactured clothing, and is not conducted in a home applicance.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,259,251 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,209, Unilever, do not related to laundry processes. They describe a process for production of of fatty acid soaps comprising extracting sludge (esp. sewage sludge which may be crude or activated, and/or co-settled) of solids content greater than =15 wt. % with a non-polar solvent to recover fatty materials which are then saponified in presence of a dipolar aprotic solvent of dielectric constant greater than =15.
See also by way of background numerous recently described concentrated cleaning appliances, including those which use silicones, fluorocabons, carbon dioxide and the likexe2x80x94several of these are referenced and adapted to the present purposes in the disclosures hereinafter.
A xe2x80x9cpredominant fluidxe2x80x9d refers to the majority component of a liquid under operating conditions of a laundering appliance. For example, in conventional dry-cleaning, perchloroethylene is the predominant fluid. In conventional home laundering, water is the predominant fluid. In some recently developed processes, supercritical carbon dioxide, silicones or perfluorocarbons are the predominant fluid. Carbon dioxide is a gas under normal conditions but becomes a fluid suitable for cleaning when compressed at high pressures. In applications included in general in the present invention, e.g., microemulsion cleaning, a predominant fluid need not be more than 50% of all fluids present. For example, in a mixture of water and three other fluids, A, B, and C, in the proportions water: 30%, B: 25%, C: 25%, D:20%, water is by the present definition the predominant fluid. A fluid used in treatment of fabric articles may moreover be a solvent or nonsolvent for body soils. For example, processes are known which use perfluorobutylamine as the predominant fluid. However, perfluorobutylamine is a nonsolvent for body soils. A xe2x80x9clipophilic cleaning fluidxe2x80x9d as further defined hereinafter is a fluid having at least the physical and safety characteristics of dry cleaning fluids, which in addition is at least partially liquid at atmospheric pressures and at at least one temperature in the range 0 deg. C. to 60 deg. C. (in other words, carbon dioxide, air and ntrogen, for example, are not included). Moreover a lipophilic cleaning fluid as defined herein is at least partially a solvent for body soils as defined in the test methods hereinafter (in other words, perfluorobutylamine is excluded).
The present invention encompasses a process for treating fabric articles. comprising the steps of:
(a) in a first laundering appliance, washing a load of fabric articles in the presence of a predominant fluid and at least one cleaning composition comprising a surfactant;
(b) in said first laundering appliance, at least partially removing said cleaning composition from said load of fabric articles;
(c) in said first laundering appliance, at least one step of treating said load of fabric articles with a fabric article refreshment composition in the presence of a lipophilic cleaning fluid;
(d) in said first laundering appliance, removing said lipophilic cleaning fluid from said fabric articles; and
(e) optionally, recovering said lipophilic cleaning fluid.
Processes encompassed include those wherein step (a) is selected from:
(i) an immersive washing step wherein water is said predominant fluid;
(ii) a non-immersive washing step wherin water is said predominant fluid;
(iii) an immersive washing step wherein a lipophilic cleaning fluid is said predominant fluid;
(iv) a non-immersive washing step wherein a lipophilic cleaning fluid is said predominant fluid;
(v) an immersive washing step wherein a fluidized dense gas is said predominant fluid; and
(vi) a non-immersive washing step wherein a fluidized dense gas is said predominant fluid.
Preferred processes herein do not include the use of dense gas and especially involve a cleaning step or steps which are either substantially aqueous or substantially nonaqueous, use concentrated media, and, more preferably still, have low energy requirement. This includes both immersive and non-immersive concentrated process steps. The preferred processes include those which are conducted without separating or grouping the fabric articles by color or by type, i.e., mixed bundles of xe2x80x9cdry-clean onlyxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cmachine washablexe2x80x9d articles are treated in a preferred process. Likewise-, mixed bundles of colored and non-colored articles are treated in a preferred process.
It will be observed that the present processes have in common the at least partial removal of a predominant fluid after a cleaning step, combined with the use of a lipophilic cleaning fluid in at least one fabric article refreshment step. Without being limited by theory, it is believed that this combination does at least one, and in preferred embodiments both of, (i) effectively cancelling out carryover effects of agents used in the cleaning step which otherwise adversely affect the fabric article refreshment step and (ii) eliminating one or more shortcomings of current home dry cleaning kits which, as conducted in tumble-dryers, require bags, have very little fluid present, etc.
The invention has numerous other advantages, for example permitting a much more convenient cleaning and refreshment capability for the consumer.
The invention includes both the process, and compositions, kits, etc. which can be used in the process.
All percentages and proportions herein are by weight and units are S.I units unless otherwise specifically indicated. All documents referred to are incorporated herein in their entirety.